Arts Graduates
One of the problems of having a government run entirely by arts graduates and a media reporting on them also being arts graduates is that the true situation is not properly reported.
Arts grads, especially those of a Green leaning think fast cars = bad
Slow cars =better
That's not a stupid thing to suspect, given that the chance of someone dying if hit by a car goes up seriously with impact speed.
It is however a stupid thing to believe. Recall that we are dealing with artsgrad Greens here, "belief" is not "something that seems to fit the facts as far as I know them", but uncritical acceptance.
It turns out that where 20 mph speed limits have been introduced, road deaths have gone up quite a lot, this objective fact is being ignored by policy makers and the media reporting on their decisions.
But, and this is a big but, fast cars are "bad", therefore this objective fact is simply ignored because slower cars are "good".
This is why Thatcher (Chemistry Degree from Oxford) as one of her first actions upon becoming Prime Minister took the word "Science" from the Social Science Research Council, because they weren't scientists.
A science grad, or anyone who stayed half awake through a few teenage lessons, knows that to support the idea that A causes B, you have do repeat the experiment without A. Otherwise you put a jelly baby next to a flask of hot water, it goes cold and reach the conclusion that jelly babies cool water.
Also the value of an experiment is partly how unexpected the result and finally just because you want something to be true or false, does not affect whether it is true or false.
Many "social scientists" do experiments on this basis, they look at data without control experiments and too often produce results they like.
Human factors are maddeningly unpredictable, Copper Sulphate doesn't change colour out of spite or to impress that cute little test tube of Potassium Permanganate, so control experiments are actually more important than in real sciences.
One interpretation of the less speed = more deaths comes from a general observation that the most dangerous things are those that aren't obvious, scary fast roads are scary so people are careful. It may be the case that 20 mpg speed limits lulled pedestrians into a false sense of security. This interacts with the way that cars are a lot quieter than they used to be and of course that a 20 mph limit doesn't at all mean that cars are doing less than 20, it means some are doing 20 and some are 60, an apparently fatal variation.
Or its something else, but currently the data tells us clearly that more 20 mph zones will get more people killed.
That may sound like I'm sympathetic to driver who speed, quite the reverse, my solution is harsh/brutal enforcement of speed limits. Driving at 60 in a 30 mph limit costs you your car.
One of the problems of having a government run entirely by arts graduates and a media reporting on them also being arts graduates is that the true situation is not properly reported.
Arts grads, especially those of a Green leaning think fast cars = bad
Slow cars =better
That's not a stupid thing to suspect, given that the chance of someone dying if hit by a car goes up seriously with impact speed.
It is however a stupid thing to believe. Recall that we are dealing with artsgrad Greens here, "belief" is not "something that seems to fit the facts as far as I know them", but uncritical acceptance.
It turns out that where 20 mph speed limits have been introduced, road deaths have gone up quite a lot, this objective fact is being ignored by policy makers and the media reporting on their decisions.
But, and this is a big but, fast cars are "bad", therefore this objective fact is simply ignored because slower cars are "good".
This is why Thatcher (Chemistry Degree from Oxford) as one of her first actions upon becoming Prime Minister took the word "Science" from the Social Science Research Council, because they weren't scientists.
A science grad, or anyone who stayed half awake through a few teenage lessons, knows that to support the idea that A causes B, you have do repeat the experiment without A. Otherwise you put a jelly baby next to a flask of hot water, it goes cold and reach the conclusion that jelly babies cool water.
Also the value of an experiment is partly how unexpected the result and finally just because you want something to be true or false, does not affect whether it is true or false.
Many "social scientists" do experiments on this basis, they look at data without control experiments and too often produce results they like.
Human factors are maddeningly unpredictable, Copper Sulphate doesn't change colour out of spite or to impress that cute little test tube of Potassium Permanganate, so control experiments are actually more important than in real sciences.
One interpretation of the less speed = more deaths comes from a general observation that the most dangerous things are those that aren't obvious, scary fast roads are scary so people are careful. It may be the case that 20 mpg speed limits lulled pedestrians into a false sense of security. This interacts with the way that cars are a lot quieter than they used to be and of course that a 20 mph limit doesn't at all mean that cars are doing less than 20, it means some are doing 20 and some are 60, an apparently fatal variation.
Or its something else, but currently the data tells us clearly that more 20 mph zones will get more people killed.
That may sound like I'm sympathetic to driver who speed, quite the reverse, my solution is harsh/brutal enforcement of speed limits. Driving at 60 in a 30 mph limit costs you your car.
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